Prosecutors and defense attorneys made their final arguments this week in the trial of the Newburgh Four, a high-profile case that has made national headlines as a potent example of so-called "homegrown terror." The defense has argued that the defendants were entrapped by government agents and not predisposed to commit a terrorist crime. For several months, Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films...

This Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Early on the morning of August 29th, 2005, the storm slammed into the Gulf Coast, just south of New Orleans. It ravaged the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and left over 1,800 people dead. Eighty percent of the city of New Orleans was under water after the levees failed. We go back to 2005 to air some of the voices from New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm....

Pakistan’s government is facing rising national anger as the devastating floods along the Indus River show little sign of abating. Some 1,600 people have died, and upwards of six million people are directly affected, according to the latest estimates from the United Nations, which has compared the scale of the crisis to the 2005 earthquake. As landslides and continuing rain complicated relief efforts, entire villages have been washed...

Following the Israeli commando attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla and the death of nine Turkish citizens, popular outrage has swept the streets of Turkey. Anjali Kamat Speaks to Turkish political analyst Koray Çalışkan.

Yemen has been the focus of growing international concern over insecurity and Islamist extremism. US officials say the suspect in the failed Christmas Day bombing is now providing valuable intelligence in hunting the US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who the Obama administration has approved for assassination. Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat speaks to Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee, who writes for the Dubai-based Gulf News and the...

On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Obama administration would commit $1 billion over the next three years toward a proposed global scheme to preserve tropical forests. It’s called REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. As countries attempt to hammer out a final deal before the end of the summit, Anjali Kamat files a report featuring a range of concerns over what this UN-backed...

Human Rights Watch released a report last week detailing new evidence of possible Israeli war crimes committed during last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead. The report says Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed at least eleven Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to make clear that they were civilians and not combatants. We...

President Obama came to Cairo amidst a massive security crackdown and heaping praise on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called "a stalwart ally" and a "force for stability and good in the region." We hear from former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, one of Egypt’s best-known dissidents and the chairman of the Al-Ghad Party. Nour was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2005 and recently injured in...

Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat files a report on the state of the Gazan economy, where unemployment and poverty rates are among the highest in the world. Despite international pledges of over $5.2 billion to rebuild Gaza, in the four months since Israel’s assault the siege has not been lifted and only one truck carrying cement and other construction materials has been allowed entry into the Gaza Strip. [includes rush transcript]

Palestinian gynecologist and peace advocate Dr. Izzeldeen Abuelaish speaks to Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films in his home in Jabaliya, Gaza, where Israeli shells killed three of his daughters and a niece two months ago. Walking through his daughters’ room, he points out the remnants from the attack: blood-stained walls, books, clothes, hand-drawn pictures, gaping holes that were once windows,...